What's the best way to model a retaining wall?

[Anonymous]

Hi
Using RS'09

I maybe missing something, but there seems no easy way to construct a
retaining wall run.
There a family in the Library, but I'm at a loss how to mitre them at
corners of the run.

I've tried drawing a basic wall & adding a solid sweep family for the base
but I couldn't select more than one section of the wall as the path & the
base was not joined to the wall.

Is there not a way to draw a retaining wall the same way as you would a
normal wall by selecting points & it atomically mitring a changes in
direction?

I Hope you can help me

Cheers
Dave F.

[johnsobr]

You can create a retaining wall. First, Duplicate one of the Basic Wall families, say the Generic - 8". Rename it to Retaining - 8" Concrete. Edit it's Structure to use 8" Cast in Place Concrete. Change its Wall Function parameter to Retaining.

Using that Basic Wall type, model a wall in whatever layout you want. Corners will miter.

Go to the Modelling tab in the Design Bar and select Foundation >> Wall. The default Revit Structure template comes with a Bearing footing and a Retaining footing loaded. If you Edit the Type parameters of the Wall Foundation family you will notice the Structurage Usage parameter can be either Bearing or Retaining. Bearing will yield only a Width whereas Retaining will yield Toe Length and Heel Length.

So, select the Retaining footing the select the wall(s) you want to have footings. You are able to flip the toe/heel by picking the footing and clicking the double arrows.

Brian Edited by: johnsobr on Nov 8, 2008 6:28 AM

[_ew]

Some new contents for RST 2009 are availabled to download on the subscription website.
Include on this package you could find some families dedicated for retaining wall. Advantage of these families is there are recognized by Revit extensions and you could reinforced them easily.
More information here:
http://www.extensions4revit.com/n/e4r/849/68

Emmanuel Edited by: _ew on Nov 20, 2008 4:29 PM